Meet the ENDURE communications team

Since its launch in late 2007, more than 91,000 people have consulted the ENDURE website, producing more than half a million page views from practically every country and territory in the world.

The task of producing content for the website and its accompanying newsletter, sent to more than 3,500 subscribers every six months, is assigned to a communications team, with represenatives of several partner institutes providing a mix of research and communications expertise.

The personnel who make up the team has recently changed, with former ENDURE Scientific Officer Marco Barzman, who headed the team, moving on to new challenges at INRA (France's National Institute for Agricultural Research). Also departed is Janne Hansen, of Denmark's Aarhus University, who is concentrating on communications for the
C-IPM ERA-NET. So the time is right to introduce the new team, which is now headed by Philippe Delval of ACTA, France, who also has responsibility for communication for the
PURE project.

Background:
Philippe is a crop protection specialist with more than 25 years of experience in experimentation, training and dissemination. He coordinates IPM projects at the national level:
EcophytoPIC, the French IPM website dedicated to end-users and advisers, and E-PIC, the French IPM training platform dedicated to certification trainers. He also participates in other French programmes providing IPM dissemination tools for advisers, trainers and farmers. At the European level, he has been involved in ENDURE since the beginning, participating in the design of the ENDURE Information Centre and ENDURE IPM training guide. He is a work package leader in two European projects: 'dissemination' in
PURE and 'demonstration and implementation by end-users' in Euclid, which will be launched in 2015.

Name:
Nick Birch

Company/institution:
The James Hutton Institute, Scotland

Role in the ENDURE communications team:
IPM expert and United Kingdom correpondent.

Background:
Nick is an experienced entomologist and IPM expert serving, for example, as the nominated expert for the EU European Innovation Partnership ‘Agricultural Productivity and Sustainability’ EIP focus group on Integrated Pest Management: Brassica field vegetables, and is a panel member of the European Food Safety Authority (GMO biosafety; non-target impacts). He coordinates The James Hutton Institute's IPM research for EU project
PURE and is a Work Package co-leader in
AMIGA, as well as the UK's Defra Hortlink project, SCEPTRE, developing biopesticides and biocontrol for protected raspberries in polytunnels. In addition, Nick is a referee and co-editor for several international peer-reviewed journals (entomology, chemical ecology, IPM, GM biosafety) and is a Visiting Professor and International Scholar at the University of Idaho's Division of Entomology in the USA. Asked to summarise his research, Nick says: “The translation of strategic research into on-farm practice for IPM implementation, linking closely to the development of sustainable farming systems and food security, facing threats of climate change, intensification of agriculture, food security and new and resurgent pests at field, farm and landscape scales.”

Role in the ENDURE communications team:
Making the link between ENDURE and INRA's SMaCH metaprogramme. She provides news from SMaCH for the website and the ENDURE newsletter.

Background:
Sylvie is an agronomist specialised in plant production with many years’ experience in scientific communication and press relations. She is now specialised in the management of projects relating to sustainable agriculture: crop health and fruit production. She is the programme manager of the SMaCH metaprogramme,
Sustainable management of crop health, a multidisciplinary programme which has launched 25 projects involving 230 INRA scientists. She is also coordinator of GIS Fruits, a consortium of 22 French partners involved in a multi-actor approach to research, training and professional organisation in the fruit sector. She was previously head of the INRA press office, trying to bridge the gap between journalists and scientists. And, just before that, was in charge of the communications team at INRA's biggest research centre, Versailles near Paris, specialising in plant sciences, agronomy and the environment.

Role in the ENDURE communications team:
Making the
link between the Coordinated Integrated Pest Management ERA-NET (
C-IPM) and ENDURE.

Background:
Jay Ram is a postdoctoral research associate who joined INRA in January 2013. He obtained his BSc and MSc honours in Agricultural Sciences at the University of Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy. In 2011, he was awarded a PhD degree in Plant Protection by the same University and he went on to work there as a postdoc fellow for more than two years. His research focuses on the epidemiology and management of diseases caused by plant pathogens (mainly bacteria and fungi) based on IPM principles. From April 2014 he has been actively involved in the coordination activities of a European Research Area Network (ERA-NET) as the Scientific Officer of Coordinated Integrated Pest Management (
C-IPM).

Name:
Andrew Lewer

Company/institution:
Argoat Communications

Role in the ENDURE communications team:
Web editor and offering professional advice on journalistic style and content. He writes, edits and produces material for the website and the ENDURE newsletter.

Background:
Andrew is a professional journalist who edited specialist magazines in the fruit and vegetable sector and on organic foods in the UK before heading to Brittany, France, in 2001. Since then he has been working as a freelance writer, translator and web editor through his own company Argoat Communications (argoat is Breton for land). In 2008 he moved to Monpellier to join
CIRAD, France's institute for agricultural research for development, as web editor of the original ENDURE Network of Excellence. Following ENDURE's progession to a European Research Group in 2011, he has continued to work in the role of web editor, working closely with
INRA, which coordinates ENDURE. He takes a keen interest in all things agricultural and enjoys helping and encouraging researchers to write their own material. Beyond ENDURE, he works with other research projects,
Agreenium (a consortium of research and higher education bodies), and France's largest vegetable producers' cooperative.

Role in the ENDURE communications team:
Web writer, Italian correspondent.

Background:
Federica is a molecular biologist who has been working in research, in its broadest sense, for more than 20 years. After 10 years of laboratory research, in 2001 she became a freelance consultant and ghost-writer for both public and private institutions. Since then, she has been working in European project management as technical and administrative manager of multi-partner RTD and cooperative projects within the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th framework programmes and EU cooperation programmes. Among her activities she includes grant writing, financial and technical management of projects, communication and higher education.